Demi, or a Tale of Gundam Wing and Biotechnology
by Petronia
Summary: The Fic That Is Not Mpreg. I don't know exactly how high-profile this fic is, but likely there are people who're aware of me solely as its author... ^^; Heero surprises Duo at the door, and Professor G rants about genetics. Unrelentingly WAFFy.


**Demi, or a Tale of G-Wing and Biotechnology**

_for Tania, biochem major and 1x2 freak extraordinaire_

* * *

"Good grief, Heero!"

The young man on the doorstep glanced him up and down, and when he spoke his voice was just a very little wry. "Can I come in?"

"Er - yes! Yes, of course. Ah." Duo stood aside and Heero moved into the entry hall, pausing to toe off his shoes - not that his American-resident floors really demanded the respect, thought Duo. He untangled the towel from around his head hurriedly, letting the still-damp hair fall down his back. "God, Heero, it's been ages. Where - aw, no, forget it. You want coffee? I made coffee. At least I think it should be made by now, stupid machine conks from time to time" Trust Heero to appear when Duo was just out of the shower, in his boxers with his hair piled in a towel on his head-

Heero.

One and a half years, if he cared to tally it up. And it seemed like more.

"The kitchen's over here, don't mind the mess-" the towel flew surreptitiously through the bathroom door - "what the hell, you've seen it all already, haven't you? Sure you have. Roomies saving civilization and all that, heh." Heero followed Duo's windmill gestures, calm as if he'd expected as much, and astonishingly unirritated. Duo drank him up with his eyes. Older - a little; taller - a little. Still glanced about him as he entered each room as if memorizing the layout, still moved with the same economy - trained into his bones - that was in itself a kind of grace. The old clothes were gone, replaced by jeans and short-sleeved cotton shirt unbuttoned and was that the same freakin' tank top underneath? It looked like it. But Relena must have burnt the thing, if she hadn't put it on exhibit at some museum of modern history. "Sure you don't want coffee?"

"All right," said Heero. Duo gaped at getting two syllables in way of response and threw himself into movement. "Over here, grab a chair. Oh, _hal_-leluia it's done, sit down, you must have driven for hours for chrissake, just let me find a mug. You still take it the same way as before, right?" Heero pulled up a chair and let Duo pour. Not smiling, the way any of the others would have been, but just his silent way and _there_ was enough. It had been one and a half years.

One and a half years he hadn't seen his fellow ex-pilot, and that was counting the photo in the society pages when they finalized the divorce. One and a half years since said fellow ex-pilot had disappeared for good, leaving Relena Peacecraft to the business of governing sans war hero on her arm. Irreconcilable differences, hadn't it been? Duo took no comfort in having foreseen the outcome. It had been more years than that of forgetting for him, and remembering again, and forgetting and remembering some more, and then realizing there wasn't much to remember in the first place. Adrenaline of battle, a gun cold against his forehead, a basketball showdown or two, a handful of awkward bed-moments fueled by mutual adolescence, half grope half caress a hundred fifteen percent just getting off It seemed a lifetime ago. But for the longest time he'd thought it would be a lifetime of longing for something out of his reach.

It wasn't like that anymore. The feeling had not faded, that wasn't the word. But he could live with it fine. It had become another fact of life, one that Duo Maxwell never bothered to question. The sky was blue, the planet was round, gobstoppers changed color after you sucked on them for a while, he loved Heero Yuy. It didn't stop him from being happy, most of the time, or even from falling in love with other people (though that hadn't happened yet, not really). It just was.

And now Heero was in his house. And watching him was like a hundred love songs, silly and sappy and happy and forever.

Heero peered at him coolly over the rim of the coffee mug, and Duo realized he'd stopped talking in favor of staring. He grinned, feeling vaguely sheepish. "How the heck did you find me? I mean, unless you had a flat out on route 206 and walked to the closest house and this is just the biggest coincidence in the history of freakin' mankind-"

"I talked to Hilde."

"That'd do it." Heero opened his mouth and - oddly enough - hesitated. Duo blinked at him a moment before realizing. "Oh. Um, yeah, we split. No spoilers if you called her, I guess..."

"When?"

"Geez. Two years ago. More. Y'know how the story goes." Heero hadn't asked, but Duo had always used words to fill the spaces between them, to force a reaction, to wrap them in warmth. He barely noticed the old habit returning. "You fight, you dream, life-and-death situations up the kazoo hell. I mean, you're _fifteen_ for chrissakes. Back then, if you care at all about anybody, it's the end of the world. Then the war ends, you shack up together, and all of a sudden it'swho-left-the-cap-off-the-toothpaste- tube. Whatever we had, it wasn't strong enough to get beyond that, and it sure as hell wasn't worth it to let it become that. We both knew it, so we split. Amiably like."

"Two years ago."

"Hey, we keep in touch." Duo poured himself another mug and boosted himself onto the counter, swinging his legs over the edge. "No thanks to El Maestro Irresponsibile Me. She calls me up every coupla months to chew the fat. Used to be more, but she found herself somebody a while back, and a more decent guy never walked the planet. Real salt of the earth. I guess Hilde's a friend now."

A good friend, he added mentally as he sipped, and thank God for that. He could hear her voice right now, but not from her last phone call, full of anecdotes and holiday cheer. No - Hilde's voice on another winter night, grave and full of hard truths

_"Look, Duo, it's nothing you can help, okay?" The dark-haired young woman sighed, hugging her arms to herself. "Certainly it's not your fault. You care about me just as much as I care about you. That's the problem. You don't marry your friend, you don't set up house with them, have children with them - and I want kids, Duo, eventually. You do that with the love of your life. I want to do that with the love of my life. I don't want to take the easy way out because we're comfortable with each other, or because anything is good enough if you've been through a war that almost got you killed."_

_She looked him in the eye then, direct and firm as always. "And don't think I don't know where you stand either, Duo Maxwell. It's him you really love, and you might as well admit it. It's not a question of who-deserves-whom, or even who-needs-whom. There's only one right way, with love." A wry smile. "This may be pure selfishness on my part, but I'm not Relena Peacecraft, to play second fiddle and pretend it's first. Call it a soldier thing."_

He'd refused to see it then, and for a long time afterwards, but Hilde was right. And thank God for that too. He didn't want anything less either; she'd forced him to admit that, if only to himself.

"So what have you been doing since - uh."

Heero raised the mug to his lips. "Since the divorce?"

Duo opened his mouth for automatic condolences, but two considerations gave him pause: firstly that the Heero he knew would whack him for any sentiment remotely resembling pity, and secondly that he wasn't sorry at all to begin with.

Besides, it wasn't as if Heero condoled him a word for breaking up with Hilde, did he?

Heero spoke before he could pursue that train of thought. "Traveling. Watching things happen. Writing a little."

Duo's eyebrows shot up. "Writing?" He remembered Heero churning out a number of rather impressive essays back in boarding school, but he never figured-

"Aa." Heero smiled then, very slightly. "I'll let you read it sometime."

"Jesus," Duo said in astonishment. "You've changed."

"And you're just the same." Heero reached across the table and wound a strand of Duo's damp hair though his fingers, in emphasis.

Duo felt suddenly warm, as if someone had spiked the coffee. Heero was gazing up at him, quiet as if it were all the moment needed. As if it were easy for him to stay like this, closer than they'd been for years but still much, much too far. Perhaps it had always been easy, for Heero. He wouldn't know. But maybe-

Maybe.

Duo drew a breath to speak, not knowing what madness would tumble out of his mouth -

And the _doorbell_ of all things rang, cutting him off. When he didn't move, Heero glanced in the direction of the entrance hall and back at him inquiringly.

Duo felt an urge to blaspheme, but put it behind him. He pushed away from the kitchen table with a sigh. "Be right back." Heero made no move to follow.

The bell rang again as he was making his way to the door. That was it. The guy had better have crashed his car as he was getting his pregnant wife to the hospital, because Duo was not going to accept any lesser emergency by way of excuse. He wondered if Heero knew how to deliver babies. Wouldn't put it past Dr. J to have made it part of his training-

There was no one outside.

Duo stared in astonishment - _what the hell!_ - then in rising disgust, and moved to slam the door.

Then something tugged on his shorts.

Duo's hands went to his waistband instinctively, and he looked down.

Into a pair of big, cobalt blue eyes.

Good God.

"I'm looking for my papa," the little boy said. Duo registered sneakers, pageboy hair, an oversized flannel sweatshirt sporting a colorful giant-robot design. He looked about three, but the expression was alarmingly serious. "Did you see him, 'niisan?"

Duo realized he was gaping. "Uh - I dunno." Wait. Wait a sec. What did he just "Your _papa?_"

The boy nodded. "I fell asleep in the car," he said as if it were all the explanation required. The blue eyes gazed up at him candidly; they were so familiar Duo felt cold.

"You-"

"My name's Demi." Said the way Trowa pronounced _demi-tasse_, Duo noted irrationally, like it was another language. "What's yours?"

"Um. Duo. Duo Maxwell. I'm sorry. _Papa?_"

"Duo?" It was Heero, leaning against the door to the sitting room. Before Duo could open his mouth little Demi's solemn expression was replaced by a face-splitting grin, and he launched himself over Duo's lintel in a flurry of limbs and unlaced sneakers.

"Papa! Where'd you go!"

Heero scooped the child up smoothly before he impacted against his shin. "Sorry," he said as if apologizing to an adult. "I had to talk to Duo by myself."

"Duo-niisan's your friend?"

"You could say that." Duo reached behind him, pushed the door shut, leant back. Heero's eyes met his then - they weren't emotionless, but Duo didn't understand at all what he read in them. It could have been regret, confusion, even embarrassment, even defiance. None of which should be in Heero Yuy's vocabulary.

"So," he said. "Traveling and writing, huh." And then suddenly there were too many words, most of which he had no right to say, and he was choking to hold them back.

They were both looking at him now, and the resemblance was so striking it made Duo's chest ache. Heero looked almost lost, but the way he cradled Demi against him was decisive. "Duo, it's not-"

"Hey, no problem. Cutest thing on two feet, your kid. But don't leave him alone in the car, for crying out loud. It's a little early for him to be getting his license." His smile was the most difficult one he'd ever had to force. He turned and grabbed his jacket, snagged his motorbike helmet off the rack.

"Where are you going?"

"Oh. Wherever. Into town. Figure I'll buy some stuff to celebrate." He was making very little sense, he knew, but he had to get out of the house, had to cut his losses. "I mean, we've gotta talk. You should tell me about the mom, for one thing, you sly dog."

"Duo-"

"Be right back, 'kay? Ciao." And then he was out of the house, the door swinging shut behind him, and scrambling onto his bike and gunning his way up the winding dirt path in a swirl of dust. Fast. Faster.

It took a near-miss with a Mack truck on the highway before he realized he shouldn't be out speeding in his state of mind. Duo swerved onto the side of the road, killed the engine and threw himself down on the grass.

Three years old. Three years God. It couldn't have been Relena, it would have been in the news. The only alternative was that Heero had been fooling around, which come to think of it was not so farfetched as all that, even for the former "perfect soldier." Duo knew he would've been sorely tempted, married to her.

Maybe the divorce was for a simpler reason than he'd assumed.

He scrubbed at his eyes furiously. Dammit. _Damn_ it. So it wasn't going to happen. He could live with that, had been living with it for years in fact. But Heero could have

Could have what? Broken the news more tactfully?

He might have intended to, but Duo doubted it. This was Heero bloody Yuy on consideration here. He probably thought leaving his kid asleep in the back seat was tact.

Why, in any case, would he have given a damn?

A cell phone rang, startling him, and it took him a moment to realize it was his own. He sighed, fishing it out of his jacket pocket. Of all the times to get a call -

"Yo, Maxwell here."

"Whatever that boy of J's told you, it's way out of the ballpark," said the familiar voice on the line. Duo winced reflexively.

"Professor G?"

"Far and away. Parsecs away. Beyond quasar territory. I let him take the kid for one week and this is what happens. Would you believe it's all my fault now? I stole his boy's samples, apparently. _Bull._ Like he wasn't right with me from petri dish to phonics reader. Listen, Duo. You're not _too_ upset about it, are you? It's the way these things go. Thought experiment one day and the next, well, breakthrough in genetic engineering. You signed a waiver for your biopsies anyhow, and I expect J's boy did the same."

"My" The scientists had samples of their former pilots from saliva to blood to toenail clippings. Duo shook his head, trying to sort it out. "What - what am I upset about?"

"The boy, of course. The child. J's boy said he was taking him to you. Walked in on him at J's lab, and that old fart let the cat out of the bag. Chaos-fluctuations-in-probability know what he told him. Says he's had a change of heart, and maybe the kid should get to know his chromosomal provenance - like I didn't raise him from the test tube no-how. What the damn hell happened to nurture versus nature anyway? Chomsky, my wrinkled behind."

He didn't need this. Peter at the Gates with the keys and a security camera, he _didn't_ need this. "Prof. Prof, slow _down_. Let me get this straight. Are we talking about, like, Demi?"

"Yes, him. Not been damaged, has he? Never knew what that Peacecraft girl was thinking, but J's boy has the parental aptitude of crawfish. I didn't raise the kid to get messed up outta pure neglect."

"Ah. Ah, no, he seemed okay." G had raised Demi. How was that possible? "Uh, if I could ask -"

G ignored him. "And after he goes and makes a bloody mess of the business as usual, he has the chutzpah to tell me to call and fix things up. I resent it. I do. Bastard lost interest in the project right after I told him you couldn't _do_ sensory deprivation on a one-year-old without screwing him up, and he was fruitcake if he thought I would go through the whole in-vitro thing again. He'd run out by then too, it was after his boy got divorced and went AWOL. Wish he'd kept his claw out of it altogether. How was I supposed to know he counted his test tubes twice a week?"

A sinking feeling was sneaking up on Duo. G was the type of scientist who, if asked to build a Turing machine, would print the ticker tape in smiley faces and arrows instead of 0's and 1's. In certain fields, Duo would bet on his professionalism with his life; in others, he didn't trust the old crank further than he could boot him. "What exactly are you saying, Professor?"

A hurrumph. "I'm saying it was an experiment, and it just seemed like a good idea to go with J's boy for the source material. Didn't expect him to start meddling too. Pay attention, boy."

"You used _Heero's_ -"

"Heh. You have any idea what a pain it was? Normally you pour the two test tubes together and hope for the best. With _this_ you actually had to trap the wiggly yokes and slurp the chromatin out with a ten-micron-diameter fiberoptic! But it was a way to pass the time. We farmed out some of the engineering to H, he cooked up the little clamp to hold the tail. Used nanotech. Not that we told him what it was for or anything, but you know how H is. Give him a mechanical problem, it'll keep him busy."

"Pass the time?" Duo had not been struck speechless, but he thought he was getting there. "You - the two of you used Heero's DNA for a _baby_ without telling him, and this was to pass the time?" No wonder Heero had looked lost! And Duo had just walked out on them-

"Well, sure, but that and scientific progress-"

"Scientific progress, my ass! You had no right!"

"Duo! You watch your mouth!"

"Screw that!" Duo was furious. "You're the ones who're outta line, you and your whole breed of old renegade tech freaks! What the hell do you think we are, your building block toys?" Three, four years this must have gone on. God, this was pushing the pale

"Well, aren't we the ungrateful brat! As if I would have used him at all without you!"

That gave Duo pause. "What the hell do I have to do with it?"

"What do you have to do with it? You've got everything to do with it! I figured if you'd have wanted to have a kid with anyone it would have been J's boy! Back in the day I patched that old goat a whole analysis on the Sacred Band of Thebes to convince him not to split the two of you. I know it didn't work out - no chance with the way J raised him not that I'm questioning your taste - but three years ago he was still bee's knees to ya and I was using your samples already! Now don't you get fresh with me, young man, or I won't tell you who was X and who Y, you hear me, Duo? Duo!"

G had no chance. Duo stared straight forward, the phone forgotten in his hand.

Cobalt blue eyes

And that happy grin

Good _God._

Duo spoke only a few sentences' worth of French. Of those, "bonjour madame" and "voulez-vous coucher avec moi" were definitely up there. But he understood that particular word, and - more to the point - he understood the way G ticked.

Demi.

Half.

1 / 2

Duo pressed hang-up and jumped for his bike.

* * *

He rushed in to find Heero sitting on the futon sofa. Demi was curled in a small bundle of flannel beside him, seemingly asleep with his head pillowed on his father's legs.

His father

Heero looked up as Duo paused in the doorway, his face schooled carefully blank.

"I" Duo took a deep breath. "Professor G called me."

Heero's expression did not noticeably change, but Duo saw a certain tension enter his eyes. "I see."

Duo twisted the end of his hair nervously. "Heero - oh, _Christ._ Why didn't you tell me? No, scratch that. I mean -"

Heero dropped his gaze to Demi's head. "I had no idea what to say," he admitted quietly. "Driving up here I thought, you should have been the one to find out, at least you would have known how" One hand rose, settled over the chestnut-brown hair, almost caressing. Chestnut. How could he have missed that? "Are you angry?"

"Angry?" Duo echoed in a whisper. "Why would I be angry?" Heero was stroking the sleeping child's head, gently, the gesture made something tighten in Duo's chest but it was not pain, oh, no "Well. Well, sure, speaking objectively I've got plenty of reasons to be angry, but not against you. And not against Demi either." Demi

His son.

It was wonderful, dizzy and frightening and terrible. It was like a miracle.

"No, I'm not," Duo said. He smiled, shaky. "I'm in a state of total freak-out shock, but I'm not angry. I may be ecstatic tomorrow, though. I think it'll take that long to sink in."

Heero's face relaxed, and he moved to speak. The bundle of flannel shifted then, and suddenly big blue eyes were peering up at him, muddled with sleep.

"Pa Duo-niisan? You back?"

Duo swallowed the lump building in his throat. "Ah - yeah. I'm back. Sorry to keep you waiting, kiddo."

"S'okay." Demi squirmed into a sitting position, still watching him.

"Duo-niisan's your father too, Demi," Heero said.

"Really?" Duo closed his jaw through sheer willpower and tried to stand up straighter.

"Yeah. You're our boy." Heero was looking him in the face, but Duo was truly speechless this time. "So you listen to him like you do to me, all right?"

"'Kay!" Demi stuck his finger in his mouth. "How come?" he added as a seeming afterthought.

Duo felt a grin split his face. He grabbed Demi, swung him in the air. The little boy shrieked in surprised laughter. "How come? 'Cause you're special, kiddo, that's how come! Now c'mon - it's bedtime. You get to sleep in an extra big bed tonight, how about that?"

"Do you want him to stay with you?"

Duo paused, cradling Demi against his chest. Heero gazed back at him, his hands loose at his sides, and Duo's heart sank. Of course. Heero had neither the lifestyle nor the wherewithal to take care of a toddler. Did he even have a place of his own?

"Yeah," he said, making his decision. "Yeah. My pension's big enough for two. 'Sides -" he laughed uncomfortably - "if that absent-minded curmudgeon G could raise him this far, I think I'd be able to handle it." Demi was the only issue at hand, after all. This wasn't about Heero and him, it was obvious and he should keep it in mind.

He should.

"Then" Heero's eyes were steady. "Then you'll have to let me stay too. I'm not going anywhere without him."

As Duo stood frozen, attempting to determine whether he'd ever been as rapturously happy in his entire two decades' worth of life, Demi wiggled in his arms to bring him around. "Been a really good boy," he announced with perfect irrelevance.

"Yeah?" Duo himself must have been, too, because Christmas had come at least ten months early. "I bet you were."

Was Heero actually smiling a little?

* * *

_—Montreal, December 1999 - February 2000_


End file.
